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This latest budget phone from Honor looks great but has some very rough edges.

If the Honor 7s slipped you by unnoticed, it’s easily done. Launched in China under a different name, it’s a new budget phone that is available in select global markets across Africa, Asia, Europe, South and Central America. The closest it gets to a U.S. release is Mexico, likewise, it’s not currently available in Western Europe.

But Honor does some great work in providing quality phones at excellent prices, so it’s always interesting to see what’s new. The Honor 7s continues the slightly awkward naming scheme from the brand. Being an ‘s’ model shouldn’t lull you into thinking this is something it’s not.

But name aside, is it actually any good? Well…not really.

Honor 7s

Price: €119.90 ($140)

Bottom line: The Honor 7s has a great look to it, far beyond its super-low price tag. But good looks, a nice display, and a somewhat decent camera cannot save this phone from its biggest flaw. It’s slow, slow, slow.

It’s worth leading with the price because it’s largely why anyone would seriously consider buying it at all. In Europe, it’s going for €119.90 (£106 or $140) so it’s really cheap. That, in turn, leads to a number of compromises.

Design and build quality aren’t one of those, though. You still get a metal-look back and sides that are solid as a rock and around the front you’re treated to an 18:9 “Fullview” display. The resolution is ‘only’ 720p but on a 5.45-inch display, it isn’t the end of the world, especially at this price. More important is that it’s a good-looking, vibrant display. The size and weight are excellent and perfect if you’re looking for a smaller phone but still getting one of the larger 18:9 displays.

There’s actually quite a lot to be happy about. In the blue finish I have here it looks really good, and at first glance, there’s nothing really to identify this as a cheap phone. It becomes more apparent when you look closer, such as the plasticky front, lack of fingerprint sensor and ‘only’ a single 13MP rear camera.

It’s packing a sizeable 3020mAh battery which combined with this hardware is more than ample for a busy day’s use, and the 16GB of internal storage is at least expandable with a microSD card, which can also be stacked alongside a pair of nano-SIM cards.

While it looks great and certainly has a number of positive features about its hardware, there’s an equal dose of frustration. Whether it’s the MediaTek CPU, the 2GB of RAM, a combination of both or just inadequate software engineering, this phone is slow. Not just slow when you’re pushing it, slow all the time. Hopefully, it’s an optimization issue that could be fixed with an update rather than something more deep-seeded, because just navigating the phone is a chore.

You’re treated to constant stuttering and lag, and even for a phone this cheap it’s unacceptable. With the likes of Nokia and Motorola pushing out cheap phones that perform much better, not to mention the advent of Android Go, Honor simply cannot allow a phone that performs this way to hit any market.

So it needs sorting out.

Honor 7s: Same old software, decent camera

If you’ve ever looked at a Huawei or Honor device before then the software will come as no surprise. It’s mostly the same as you’ll find on the likes of the Honor 10 or the Huawei P20 and remains consistent with some of Honor’s cheaper phones in look and feel.

Underneath EMUI you’re actually getting Android 8.1 Oreo, which is fantastic. I shouldn’t be surprised that a phone launching in mid-2018 is running the latest version, but you know. It’s especially pleasing to see on a budget phone.

There’s little to say about the software that hasn’t been said before. It’s still a blast of color to the face, though the dark notification shade is a neat touch, and as ever with EMUI there are a ton of themes and icon packs out there you can apply to give it a spruce up to your own tastes. The number one issue is what I’ve already discussed, and that’s performance. It’s just not a nice experience.

The camera pairing on the Honor 7s stacks up fairly well. Around the back, you get a 13MP single shooter, with a 5MP front camera with an LED flash. Honor is pretty good at putting the camera ahead of other areas of priority, and for a budget phone, it’s a pleasing experience all round.

Selfies look pretty good and you’ve access to the usual beautification treatments you’d find on any other Honor phone, and while the rear camera won’t necessarily take any award-winning shots, it’s a solid performer. Images can look a little dark and flat, but it’s by no means the worst you’ll find on something this cheap. Detail is pretty good, and the camera app is loaded with some of the features you’d find on Honor’s more expensive phones.

The bottom line

Availability is the key here, and the Honor 7s is probably never going to cross the path of many budget phone hunters reading this. It’s priced well though in the markets it will be sold and has plenty to like.

It looks good, with a design and construction that outstrips its price tag, the display is nice and the camera is decent for something in this segment of the market. It’s even packing a pretty big battery so you’ll likely never have to worry about running out before the end of the day.

It’s ultimately the performance that lets this phone down. Perhaps it’s because Honor opted for a MediaTek CPU and not a Kirin or Qualcomm chip, perhaps it’s just engineering gremlins. Whatever the root cause, the phone is mostly not enjoyable to use because it’s so stuttery and full of lag. I do hope it’s the latter and Honor can push out a fix, because without this spoiling the experience we’d have a really nice budget phone on our hands here.

Lenovo and Google teamed up to create the Smart Display, a smart home hub with a screen that takes direct aim at the $230 Amazon Echo Show.
The Smart Display comes in two sizes — 8″ for $200 and 10″ for $250 — and has an HD screen, two speakers, and a modern design that doesn’t scream “tech.”
Lenovo’s hardware and Google’s Assistant are a perfect match.
The Smart Display has a Google Chromecast built into it too, so you can watch videos or listen to music from dozens of services using apps on your smartphone or tablet.
The Smart Display is easily the best smart home hub I’ve tested — I’m a long-time Amazon Echo fan, but I’m considering a switch to Google’s side.

Samsung Display has announced that it has developed a truly “unbreakable” display panel, after receiving certification from Underwriters Laboratories (UL) to verify the claim. The base feature of the panel is that it’s made of flexible OLED, like many of Samsung’s modern phones, but in this case it has a substrate that’s been designed to not give out with repeated impact.

Rather than go with a super-hard glass, Samsung is using fortified plastic that’s flexible.

The traditional way to have a super-tough screen was to simply harden the covering that went over top of it. Phone makers have been covering displays with synthetic sapphire for years, which is much stronger than traditional glass found on phones. Synthetic sapphire is extremely difficult to break when reinforced properly by the phone’s hardware, and when paired with an OLED panel underneath the entire package is very rugged. But it can eventually break, because it’s brittle. This “unbreakable” panel from Samsung is covered by a fortified plastic rather than glass, which makes it flexible during impact.

Samsung claims that the fortified plastic in use here is very similar to glass in terms of its transitivity (how well light and RF can pass through) and hardness, while being dramatically more flexible. In UL’s testing, the display panel was subjected to 26 successive 4-foot drops without damage, and also continued working in extreme temperatures. Samsung notes that the panel was also tested for drops at 6 feet, well above the current standard test, without issue.

This isn’t just for phones — Samsung envisions applications in automotive, military and education.

This type of panel is still a good ways off from being put to use in any commercially available smartphones, so don’t get your hopes up for the Galaxy Note 9 — or the Galaxy S10, for that matter — to have anything like this. To that point, Samsung isn’t saying that this is being developed solely for consumer electronics. The company notes that it could also be put to good use in other applications such as car center consoles, mobile military devices, portable game consoles and education-focused tablets — it’s pretty easy to see why each one of these areas could benefit from a high-quality screen that’s also made to take extra abuse without breaking.

But Samsung’s flexible OLED panels felt like a crazy tech demo at one point too, and yet they were eventually integrated into every flagship phone the company sells over time. With rumors of Samsung working on a “foldable” smartphone, this sort of technology could definitely be a factor in those types of products being viable. At a bare minimum, being able to market an “unbreakable” display in a non-folding phone is also a nice feather in your cap — although it hasn’t really worked out for Motorola.

Asus has a couple new Android handsets up for sale in the United States starting today, including the ZenFone 5Z and Android Go-powered ZenFone Live. The 5Z is definitely the more exciting of the bunch, so let’s touch on that one first.

The ZenFone 5Z is Asus’s flagship phone for 2018, and in regards to both price and features, is a direct competitor with the OnePlus 6. There’s a Qualcomm Snapdragon 845 processor powering the phone, 6GB RAM, 64GB of internal storage (expandable up to 2TB), and a 3,300 mAh battery.

In regards to the camera situation, we’re looking at a 12MP + 8MP (wide-angle lens) combo on the back and a single 8MP shooter up front. There’s also a 6.2-inch IPS 2160 x 1080 display and, glass + metal design, rear-mounted fingerprint sensor, and Android Oreo.

Moving on to the ZenFone Live, this is the first-ever Android Go phone that we’ve seen from Asus. The phone’s packing a 5.5-inch 720p HD display with an 18:9 aspect ratio, Snapdragon 425, 1GB RAM, 16GB of expandable storage, 8MP rear camera, 5MP selfie camera, and a 3,000 mAh battery.

The plastic design won’t win any awards, but it looks fine and should be much more practical than the 5Z’s lustrous glass aesthetic.

When it comes to price, Asus has listed these rather competitively with everything else that’s currently available. The ZenFone Live comes it at a mere $109.99 and the ZenFone 5Z will set you back $499.99 — $30 less than the OnePlus 6 with very similar specs across the board.

Ever since Google first announced its Smart Display platform back at CES in January, I’ve been more than eager to get my hands on one to experience the future of living with the Google Assistant in my home. I use my Google Home and Home Mini every day for a variety of things, and as much as I love them, the idea of essentially having one with a screen slapped on top sounds like a dream come true.

There are a few Smart Displays that have been announced, but so far, the one that’s peeked my interest the most is Lenovo’s.

The Lenovo Smart Display is the very first one to hit the market, and even though it’s a bit more expensive and has a few kinks to work out compared to the tried and true Google Home, there are a few reasons why I’d like to have it over Google’s iconic speaker.

Video support

The screen on the Lenovo Smart Display is obviously the biggest draw to it over the Google Home, and one of the reasons I’m most excited for this new addition is that it means I’ll have a new screen for watching videos on.

Like most people, I spend a lot of my time in the kitchen. Whether I’m cooking dinner, unloading the dishwasher, or scrubbing down the counters, there’s a lot of time spent in that room of my apartment. I typically play a YouTube video on my phone for some background noise while going about these tasks, and while that’s fine, it means having to move my phone around the kitchen with me so I can hear it and glance at what’s on its screen.

With the Lenovo Smart Display, I’ll be able to just ask the Google Assistant to play a YouTube video and have it showcased on a large 10.1-inch display with speakers that are far better than what’s on my OnePlus 6.

I don’t think I’ll be sitting down around a Smart Display anytime soon to watch full-length movies, but for those times when I want something to glance at every now and then while doing chores or preparing dinner for the night, I’m ecstatic to have something that’s been designed with that sort of use in mind.

Deeper control of apps/services

Video support is one feature the Lenovo Smart Displays offer that’s completely nonexistent on the Google Home, but along with charting unexplored frontiers, the use of a screen on Lenovo’s machine also allows for richer experiences that are already available with audio-only Assistant speakers.

For example, I can talk to my Google Home and ask it to dim my Hue Lights or change the temperature with a Nest thermostat all day long. The same exact thing can be done with the Lenovo Smart Display, but after that first command is given, you’ve got access to on-screen controls to fine-tune your lights or AC even more.

The Lenovo Smart Display is taking existing Google Home features and making them ten-times better.

Another way this can come in handy is with music. With the Lenovo Smart Display, you can actually browse through various playlists and decide which one you’d like without having to pick something specifically with just your voice. Once a song is playing, you can quickly glance at the screen to see what it’s called, fast forward, or see how much time is left with that particular track.

The Google Home can read aloud recipes, but with the Lenovo Smart Display, you get visual step-by-step directions and pictures of the dish you’re making to make the experience even more helpful. You can set timers on Google Home without any trouble, but on the Lenovo Smart Display, watch the seconds tick by without having to constantly ask “Hey, Google, how much time if left on my timer.”

You get my point.

A lot of what the Lenovo Smart Display does you can already do on Google Home, but because of the screen, the way you interact with these commands/questions is much more useful and seamless compared to an audio-only experience.

It’s a digital photo frame for the modern era

Along with all of the smart home control, powerful speakers, and everything else the Lenovo Smart Display has to offer, it’s also the best digital picture frame you can buy in 2018.

Digital picture frames have been around for years, but whether it was due to low-resolution screens, huge bezels, wonky controls, etc., the execution of them has always left something to be desired. The Lenovo Smart Display fixes all of that.

The HD or Full HD panels on the 8-inch and 10.1-inch models, respectively, look great, the bezels aren’t overly large, and best of all, your pictures are seamlessly added through your Google Photos account.

In addition to being able to pull up specific photos with just your voice, you can also set certain albums/pictures to regularly cycle through to ensure you’ve always got a memory to look at when walking by your Smart Display. And, since these are all pulled in from the cloud, you don’t have to mess with loading photos on an SD card.

The price is right

Last but certainly not least, the Lenovo Smart Display absolutely kills it when it comes to price.

For the 8-inch model, you’ll need to hand over just $199. On its own, that’s already a good price. When you compare it to the Google Home and realize it’s just $50 more than Google’s screenless-speaker and $30 less than the Echo Show, it becomes an even better deal.

The 10.1-inch screen is certainly nice to have, but for most people, the $199 model offers the same experience in a more compact form factor. And, for technically less than $200, I can see a lot of folks picking this up as a Christmas present come the holiday season this year.

Why do you want the Lenovo Smart Display?

Those are the reasons why I think the Lenovo Smart Display is a better purchase over the Google Home, but what about you? Are you excited for the Smart Display future or are you perfectly happy not having a screen for the Google Assistant? Let me know in the comments below!

The mobile industry has been tracking this rumored Samsung “Galaxy X” prototype phone for several months, gradually pushing back the supposed launch timeline for what’s apparently to be a successor to the general “Galaxy S” line. But as waves of details about the upcoming Galaxy S9 and S9+ come in, we’re still struggling for details on what this supposed Galaxy X with a foldable display will be. Here’s the latest information.

The latest Galaxy X news

July 18, 2018 — Galaxy X reported to fold in the shape of a wallet, might cost over $1,500

A report from The Wall Street Journal surfaced this morning outlining a few key details we can expect from the Galaxy X. When describing the design of the phone, part of the report notes that:

The screen can be folded in half, like a wallet, these people said. When folded, the exterior of the phone boasts a small display bar on the front and cameras in the back, they added.

Furthermore, it’s said that the Galaxy X has a screen that measures in at 7-inches diagonally.

As for pricing and availability, WSJ notes that the Galaxy X has “taken on a greater sense of urgency in recent months” and that its price tag could reach well beyond $1,500. The phone’s expected to be released at some point in early 2019.

All the big details

Some background on Galaxy X rumors

No, you didn’t miss an announcement — Samsung didn’t have anything public to say about the Galaxy X (if that is its real name) at CES 2018. But as many companies do, Samsung took the opportunity of having so many high-up industry people together to show off what it’s working on to partners. According to The Investor, this year that included the Galaxy X. The device in question has a 7.3-inch display that can fold in the middle — multiple versions were shown, with different capabilities such as folding both inwards and outwards.

The inward-folding model (protecting the screen when closed) is reportedly the design with the most traction at the moment. The outward-folding one, on the other hand, includes “more advanced next-generation technology,” whatever that entails. The rest of the specs of the phone aren’t yet known, and considering how far out we are from a potential release — reportedly as late as early 2019 — those can and will change between now and then.

How will a ‘foldable’ phone actually work?

Samsung has of course been putting curved panels in production phones since the Galaxy Note Edge that eventually spawned into a phenomenon that has become a hallmark of Samsung’s high-end devices. The company has been experimenting with bendable OLED panels for years, going so far as to show them off publicly as technology demonstrations. But the question is whether it could make devices with displays that could be actively bent or folded thousands of times as a regular part of use. The display would have to be very robust, but then you also have the issue of what covers the display panel — typical Gorilla Glass wouldn’t do the trick.

LetsGoDigital has worked up renderings based on reports and patent filings that show the Galaxy X as a vertical-orientation phone, but with a hinge mechanism built into the sides of the phone. The phone would be rigid (and what looks to be extremely tall as well) when the display is extended and flat, but you could pull the top and bottom apart to expose the hinge to then bend while the screen follows suit.

Further renders show the phone while closed, which leaves a gap around the hinge portion not unlike a Microsoft Surface Book laptop. Large internal components would of course split between the top and bottom halves of the phone by the hinge.

Early rumors pointed to a Galaxy X with a hinge and two displays, but now we’re talking about just one panel.

Early rumors of the Galaxy X pointed to some sort of announcement or teaser as early as late 2017, which obviously didn’t happen. But those same rumors questioned whether the Galaxy X was truly a “bendable” phone with a single screen, or simply a hinged device with two distinct panels — like the ZTE Axon M, for example. It seems now that Samsung’s going to attempt a full-on single bendable display. Other rumors also had indicated Samsung had a more tablet-shaped device with this bendable display technology in place, and that may still be on the table in different future devices, but in terms of the “Galaxy X” it looks to be a traditional vertical phone orientation.

When it will be announced

Our next best bet for when we’ll hear more about the Galaxy X will be MWC 2018, which kicks off at the end of February. That’s where Samsung has already said it will unveil the Galaxy S9 and S9+, and perhaps that will come along with a tease or some sort of information on what’s coming after that. Fingers crossed.

As for the full reveal, it’s more likely that we’ll be waiting until the second half of 2018. In its Q4 2017 earnings release, Samsung said it would be placing a higher emphasis on foldable OLED displays going forward and that those plans included debuting a foldable phone very soon. Based on this statement being made in January, it’s a good sign the Galaxy X could be revealed in 2018. An actual sales date could easily push into 2019.